actuality.log

Tommorrow’s the Graduate Student Symposium. And I’m beginning to get irritated because for the past 3 days, apart from the usual hard core intellectual assault, I’ve had to deal with working like a labourer in some south east Asia.

Moving stuff around, cleaning stuff, checking stuff etc. No free food, no fanfare, no great recognition, no thank you even.

Volunteering sucks.

MS Outlook sucks even more. One of the participants seems to swear by it, and keeps attempting to send me a SEVENTEEN MEG file which Outlook decides to be smart about and split into smaller files. The trouble is, it splits it in some fancy proprietary fashion only it knows how to rejoin again. And I am not going to install Outlook just to see this person’s file.

ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS UPDATE THEIR SORRY EXCUSE FOR A WEBSITE.

All this stuff has taken time from the really important things in life, like building Half Life 2. Half Life was THE coolest non id made fps I’ve ever ever played. Yes, it made me swear, laugh, cry, think, scream in fear and everything in between. Gordon Freeman, PhD in theoretical physics, M.I.T working for Black Mesa Corp. was one of the coolest characters, ever.

It would have been the coolest, but it wasn’t from id, and I’m horribly biased. Now it’s been freed, but sad.

It’s that time of year (couple of months?) again. I really want to buy something. Something useful, something productive… no, just something cool I want.

The iPod looks, feels and plays insanely awesome. It’s even got upto 40 GB of music storage space. The only trouble however, is it only plays MP3‘s. And ALL my music is in Ogg Vorbis.

So if I bought it, it’d mean re-ripping 50 or so CDs again. Sure, there is some cool software to do this, but I’ll just feel unclean again.

But it looks so cool.

Moving along, there’s the quite capable Neuros. It claims to be a digital audio computer. Anyway, the point being, the shots on the site make it look good, and most importantly, it plays Ogg Vorbis. The only thing is that, though the 128 MB thing seems small enough, I think the 20GB one will be quite bulky and unmanageable.

You know, when I am out in the gym or jogging in the cold or something, I need something small and sleek. You know.

For those who missed it, that last line was supposed to wreak of sarcasm.

Then finally, let me introduce the most promising contender, the Nintendo GameCube. Sure, the ads and games make it seem like it’s designed for people younget than me. Sure, old people are expected to go in for an XBox or a PS2.

But it just looks so cute, it’s got the coolest games I’d ever want to play on a console. That’s the thing, while Sony, MS etc seem to focus on games looking good, Nintendo seemed to focus on, almost cuddly, characters who you want to be with?

I mean, the last legend of zelda or mario franchise game I played was when I was 10 or something. Years later, I still want to. And the need is quite strong. Yes, this means my mental faculties probably haven’t developed in all this time. I am a geek, and all those things. But none of that’s important, I would rather have this than any other conole right now.

It’s just, can I be home long enough to play and finish anything? Considering it doesn’t have a hard drive, and uses discs instead of cartridges which can’t be written into.

Decisions, decisions.

Some things that have dawned on me in the recent past:

Fact: Diet colas suck. No-name brands attempting to cheap-imitate sucky diet colas are suckier.
Fact: There is something about my couch. Every roommate I’ve ever had prefers that couch to their bed. Either that or there’s something about me, or their bed. Or a linear combination of these three.
Fact: A human being can live on 2-4 hours of sleep per day, at least for a period of three days.
Fact: Fruit punch just sounds healthier than Mountain Dew because it’s got the word fruit in it.
Fact: Customizable “number” plates are a cool concept. A person must be pretty devious and confident of her skills to warn you by picking “congirl”.
Fact: A human being can walk at least 30 minutes with his/her feet exposed to an ambient temperature of at least 35.6 F, and not need amputation or any such thing.
Fact: Working with many poorly thought out multi-dimensional arrays across heterogenous code in different languages is a bad thing. It is something to be feared, respected, and avoided.
Fact: A human being can survive on one meal a day, for at least two days.

But most importantly:

Fact: I can hold conversations over hours.
Fact: I do know people who “just get me”, complete my sentences and laugh hard for the stupid things I say.
Fact: Communicating with them is fun, and a lot less work, hence funner.
Fact: I can feel, I can smile, I can feel happy.
Fact: I am happy. I am smiling.

For some reason, as I was googling for something, I typoed and arrived at Ram’s site. Poked around a bit, and a bunch of dead links and empty pages later, I found Srijit’s and ENSAK’s!

And hah, Don. Who’s doing FINANCE! The university “THIRD” ranker. Yeah right people, what he fails to mention is that there were only some 20 odd people DOING THE DAMN course in the whole university at the time. Compare that to the 22000 or whatever getting their undergrads in JUST engineering in my year.

And it increases exponentially with time. Or so people back home tell me. Speaking of people back home, I realized I’ve developed this stupid urge to, at regular intervals, give them random information about my financial situation. I mean, it’s cool to show them they didn’t have to shell out another 14000 for this 4 month term, EACH term. But after some self over analysis, I came to realize it’s not anything to do with feeling proud, showing them some form of achievement so they’ll be happy etc. It’s just, I’m quite busy and all that, and spend very little time communicating with them. When I am free, I’d rather relax and do something else. Something NOT INVOLVING COMMUNICATION. And after long periods (where long = 5’s of days) of detachment, I think I feel.. guilty? And showing them these things, I guess is a crude way of going, see, I am not free. I do work, and that pays for all of this. In a “now I’m totally justified in not talking to them” sort of way? I don’t know. It’s just, I’m beginning to think deep down it’s got something to do with this.

And returning from that (not exactly) little detour to todays’ wonder of wonders, I was always quite curious as to what happened to these people. (Not care, curious). I mean, once they left college, no one (read me) bothered to keep in touch or find out where they were. Therefore in a bit, they became this mythical figures doing their thing in some godly places.

Little did we (I) know. The gazillion rumours floating around were all wrong. It’s like when Raj hesitantly asked me whether I was in Bangalore or here. Totally tangent again, I’m happy he’s there and not Alaska or some such waste of time.

I mean, know one “really” knows when you leave college. And people just assume whatever. Of course, you could stay in touch and all that and know for sure.

But that’s too much work.

And the gedit build on my box is the most buggiest piece of software in the history of time. I lost this post three times before I had to switch to good old Emacs.

It’s also not supposed to be so late. Second night in a row I’m planning to “live” on campus. Sometimes I wonder why I bother with a home and rent and all that. I could just lurk here. I don’t want to go back in the cold just to go to sleep. My lips are getting totally chapped. AND IT’S NOT EVEN OCTOBER. It’s not like they’re terribly important, it’s just, they’re the only pair I’ve got.

And I use them as a thermometer. This much chappiness -> it’s this cold. And now they’re telling me it’s very cold. I’ve got to find some more stuff to do to avoid that “journey” home.

Totally unrelated, over the past few days, there has been a career fair going on on campus. I’ve never seen these many people in suits, ever. Firstly, I’ve decided to not attempt to work at any place that requires even semiformal clothing. Yes, I know this means I might be out of work forever, but I don’t care. Secondly, I now realize the true magnitude of current unemployment.

And what do people do to try to fix the situation? They attempt the, “hey, I’m in a suit, you’ve got to hire me” approach. Yeah right.

This would have been one of the saddest things, ever.

I should be working on some numerical methods right now. I don’t feel like it anymore. That’s all I’ve been doing for a while and that’s all I do. Work? – numerical methods. Coursework? – numerical methods. HW for coursework? – You guessed it, numerical methods.

And it’s never some simple difference scheme either, it always has to be some totally opaque variational weak form thing. Like it just HAS TO BE.

Right now, I wish I were some analytical closed form calculus god, to not ever see another opaque numerical method, ever. Well, at least for the next half an hour or so, while I’m on this “break” anyway.

Why do things in life behave this way? Why don’t they realize we’re essentially quite stupid a race, and dumb down their behaviour so they can be modelled by some polynomial or something? Why, WHY?

Actually, I am totally ok with it. I won’t be attempting to major in it otherwise. It’s just, I’ve been staring for the past half an hour at some scheme whose result’s infinity norm DOESN’T change as it’s SUPPOSED to with other parameters. And I can’t see why.

Which reminds me, I’ve got to get some sort of MathMLisms working on this page, so that I can scream, formally. I’ve seen some radically advanced sites, which steal their equations straight out of their LaTeX source and pipe out MathML for browsers to render. Which is cool, in a formal screaming way.

Totally unrelated, this blog had its second signup, apart from me of course. The more (silent lurker types,) the merrier I always say.

Oh my, this little break thing has replenished my enthusiasm to work with the equations again. Back to work.

Before which, I need to move to some totally far away spot. The dude on a computer next to me is all CONTINUOUSLY fiddling trying to straighten his hair, and it’s annoying me more than it ought to. COME ON FOOL, it’s like 3mm in length, you can’t do anything about it, and it looks perfectly fine as it is.

Carefully adjust adjust adjust. No difference. Adjust adjust adjust. No difference. Adjust adjust adjust. No difference…

GAH! Can’t you see the pattern?

And hah, for some reason I googled it, and found this site. Googling has become an involuntary activity like breathing, there was no active thought going on, it just happened.

Yes, I know. I woke up and began admiring XHTML‘s extreme content and style separation abilities.

If you think this is even moderately cool, you should check out CSS Zen Garden.

Well, most of the day any how. Ran away from home for the weekend, from ticking clocks and what not. Some time during the day, I felt a bit bad as I saw this site. I mean, I had “taken over” site management and all that and just done some hasty cut and paste jobs from previous years. Yes, it was just some elaborate google bomb attempt.

Update: This whole post is pretty much null and void as I’ve over written the sad(der) looking site. So I’ve linked above to the previous years page (where I had stolen from), just to compare things.

No one seemed to care, but it was a bit much for me. So this was born. It’s not ready ready yet. Some stuff needs to be added/changed and there will be some gross errors. Most importantly, that orange patch on the top left is just a placeholder for a logo. Unless, hmm…

No, I can’t pass it off as some new agey logo, unless, hmm, I come up with some brilliant fib about “simplicity”. Hmmm, no.

Work involved apart, got to learn some XHTML. Unfortunately, it’s the least rocket sciencey of knowledge. And I love tables.

And totally unrelated but very important, to me, my watch lives!

Update: The new logo is cheesy and not entirely original but what the heck, I’ve got real life and all that to worry about.

I normally don’t steal too blatantly from other places. But this is important to me, and to the rest of the world. This is the 20th anniversary of RMS’s usenet post that started it all.

Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP
From: RMS@MIT-OZ@mit-eddie.UUCP (Richard Stallman)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.usoft
Subject: new UNIX implementation
Message-ID: <771@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 13:35:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.771
Posted: Tue Sep 27 13:35:59 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Sep-83 07:38:11 EDT
Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 90

Free Unix!

Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu’s Not Unix), and give it away free to everyone who can use it. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed.

To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation.

GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. We will have network software based on MIT’s chaosnet protocol, far superior to UUCP. We may also have something compatible with UUCP.

Who Am I?

I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS editor, now at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. I have worked extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system. I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS. In addition I have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for Lisp machines.

Why I Must Write GNU

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement.

So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.

How You Can Contribute

I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money. I’m asking individuals for donations of programs and work.

One computer manufacturer has already offered to provide a machine. But we could use more. One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date. The machine had better be able to operate in a residential area, and not require sophisticated cooling or power.

Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate of some Unix utility and giving it to me. For most projects, such part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the independently-written parts would not work together. But for the particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent. Most interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work with the rest of GNU.

If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or part time. The salary won’t be high, but I’m looking for people for whom knowing they are helping humanity is as important as money. I view this as a way of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies to working on GNU by sparing them the need to make a living in another way.

For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
RMS@MIT-MC.ARPA

Usenet:
…!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ
…!mit-vax!RMS@OZ

US Snail:
Richard Stallman
166 Prospect St
Cambridge, MA 02139

Fridays are usually quite good. Good in the sense of less stressful. In the sense of less work. Which vaguely correlates to reduced courseload, and proximity to the weekend to figure out stuff related to research.

Today wasn’t very good. With the evil roomies leaving, and some services being under their names, like power, it was time to fix all that. So got them to cancel things so I could restart under my name. A couple of phone calls and you’re all set right?

In an ideal world, probably. In mine, no. Oh, we’re sorry, we need you to have a driver’s license for us to give you power. Other id isn’t good enough for us. Yes, because I have to physically drive up there in a truck to pick up my batteries and cylinders or whatever of gas.

Ok, so what do I need to do? You will need to stop by at our office and show us your papers in person. And she hastily gives me some address. I have to remind me to imagine an annoying nasal voice telling me this.

What she fails to mention is the place is in a neighbouring city. Did it occur to her I might not have a license because I don’t drive and hence can’t travel too far too easily? Then again, every small place here gets called a city, so that is not saying much. So, I download a bunch of maps, head over to some information desk, steal a bunch of bus schedules, and attempt all forms of superimposition before I figure out what bus to take, and where to take it from.

I am so bad with directions, it could be a disease.

Anyway, somethings have to be done. Actually, without too much difficulty, or time loss, I find this place. Really, it was quite simple. Once I’m there, I notice I am the only under 50 year old non-African American. And am the only one not paying a bill. This isn’t such a big deal, but I wonder how an entire group of people didn’t know that their bills could be payed without actually showing up in person.

In a little while, I get to meet this representative dude. Who goes through the stuff, and punches in the details into the computer. And EVERYTHING autocompletes before he finishes. They HAD everything I could show, the fools. The computer now decides I haven’t yet been “positively ID’d” and goes on to some schpeel about probable misrepresentation or some such nonsense.

Yes, I will ACTIVELY GO THERE AND DECIDE TO PAY THE BILLS FOR SOMEONE ELSE. Yes, I have the “irresistible philanthropy” disorder. As I start explaining all this to the guy, he gets it and everything is fixed. Like finally, I get back home.

In all this “excitement”, I’ve missed lunch, and it’s time for dinner. As I’m walking up to the sandwich place, I run into the famous “crazy lady who crosses like a maniac because near death experiences are quite normal for her”, again. This time I pretty much run to get ahead of her, and hit the cross button and wait. I blocked her from crossing. Not physically block block. But there is something about a younger person waiting, she HAD to wait, because… she HAD to. And it worked, and I’ve done my teeny deed for today.

Walk past my “non” hair dressers. Where I get my hair “not” cut. I’ve been here over a year and I’ve been there ONCE. The people there probably see me, but today one of them was out having a smoke and was all “hey, how’re you?” and all that. Yeah right lady, like you care. But I couldn’t say it. I just had to go through the average kind of annoying dialogue with stupid humour and more references to the weather than I am comfortable with.

Making a not entirely rude getaway, I get food. Now I’m beginning to miss this one person who KNOWS what I want. I’d walk in, and something which I like, within my reasonable choices would be magically ready and she’d give me discounts and so on because she realized I was a regular, and I liked being treated like one. I just realize I don’t even know her name. Need to fix that.

Now that regular sem’s on, she isn’t there as often, and things like today happen. Finish eating, and as I’m leaving the other lady comes up to the “veggie guy” and gives me “my” wallet which I “lost”. I was impressed and embarrassed and all that. But I thank her and take it, and leave. Resisting the urge to check the contents in front of her. Trallalllaaaa.. walking along, I place my hands in my pockets, to find TWO wallets, that look reasonably similar.

Open one, it’s some *SEA’s wallet. So I walk back and give it back to her. Another employee from the back goes, see I told you he doesn’t look like the guy in the photo. Good lord. This brainy soul’s blind. Good hearted, but blind. She SAW the pic of the SEA AND followed me to return it.

I know I’m being mean but.. sheesh. I guess this is why I miss the other girl who seemingly “knows” me.

*SEA – South East Asian

That’s who I am. Ok, I’ve slowly evolved to a computer and mathematica kind of guy now, but it’s the same thing. Same enough. I observe. I don’t actively experiment. It’s all in the head. It always has been, it always will be. Thought experiments are as dirty as I am willing to get.

Attempt to explain, quantify.. recreate rationally in the mind, is what it’s about. The “doability” of actions never plays a part in any of this. Sitting quietly in a corner somewhere and figuring it all out, at least, attempting to, without really doing anything.

Which is fine and all that, when the goal is just getting a grip on how things behave the way they do. That is all that matters to me, it’s not what I plan to do with that gained knowledge. There was never a bigger plan, that was the goal.

Then you realize that’s totally the antithesis of the expected mentality of an engineer. Engineers are the lower geeks who don’t really get it. More importantly, they don’t care that they don’t get it, as long as they get what they want done. You tend to think, hah, lowlifes.

That’s when it hits you, (it hits me anyway, on days like today), that everyone’s understanding of what happens around them is very very limited. Sadly, this makes me one of them. More sadly, even the little bit we’ve “figured”, sigh, at a fundamental level is an elaborate curve fit (last seen here). Sadder still, is that the “we” in my previous sentence encompasses all of us, every single one.

Like when I was talking to Sarah earlier, I realized how complicated things are and how little we knew about what is really going on. But at least some people actively try. They experiment with things going on around. They probe, they might find. It’s talking with people who do, when you realize “doability” is an issue, one that we paper pencilers don’t see.

But then again, what is it that’s found? Wise(r probably) (wo)men look around, see patterns, form “theories” that attempt to “explain” things in such a way that they don’t violate any of these observations. That is all. This is what I refer to as everything being an elaborate curve fit.

These people have tremendous insight no doubt, but none of it is fundamental truth. Everything just attempts to be correct until some Jane (Ok, not Jane, Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara, happy?) probably finds a counter example some day and a theory’s scrapped. And the next is born.

When you’re younger, things are so much easier. You’re just about as willing to believe in theories as truths as you are the tooth fairy.

I wish I were a wide eyed child again. I also wish I realized what I was really looking for. Finite lifespans with slow brains suck.

Just saw Coupling a while back, the American version. God awful. The show is so much cooler on the BBC. Ok, I have to admit the people don’t look as good there (hmm.. or do they?), but who cares? They so fit their parts. The dialogue is insanely funny. (That, and they use proper words. British words.) And the characters have humour in their lines. The show there is mostly slow dialogue, and the humour is quite subtle at times. This just seemed slapstickey, in the sense that they were trying too hard to be funny.

And weren’t.

I can’t believe I missed most of an episode of South Park for this. Gah!

Coolness. I am doing better today. Almost fine actually. It’s insanely cold and wet and windy and things outside. I don’t want to go home :|. I mean, I want to go home, but don’t fancy the walk.

I noticed on /. that the gamecube’s dropped under $100.

Drool, drool.

Also, with Half life 2, Homeworld 2 and Doom 3 among other things, I really don’t think I can stay sober all that much longer.

Update: I just saw a couple of 4000×3000! shots of Doom 3, which were about 19 Megs, AFTER compression. Yes, they were awesome, and yes, I will build another machine that can run this sweet sweet reason to live.

And, sf is taking some 15-25s to render the pages over the past couple of days. What gives? Is this the treatment a loyal, paying customer deserves? Well, “customer” anyway.

Lots of odd things been going on. Firstly, I am still not ok. Not surprisingly, this “bah, who needs medication, I will autofix me” thing isn’t working. I feel horrid, cold, my eyes burn, my whole body hurts, I can’t stop coughing or sneezing, and general stuff in that direction.

I didn’t want to wake, but I had to. And quite early. Damn, ALL classes have to be held in this one HUUGE building that can fit everyone and everything. It’s not right expecting us poor weak people to travel, in the cold.

Ok, I’m done whining about my state, for now.

Over the past few days, I’ve noticed people, not always random people, who think I give a damn and attempt to guilt me into doing things for them. I don’t want to name names because, well, they might read this page and things will get all messy. And I tend to avoid rather than deal with such things.

If you have a problem, fine, you know I’ll try to help if I can. Just don’t randomly come up with some boohoo story about some thing which really doesn’t affect me and magically expect me to help. Sorry, things don’t work that way.

Similarly, coming to random people, the PETA. Come on, just ASK me to fill the questionnaire. I will. Don’t send me a mail with a nickel saying, “Ah, keep the nickel. But please fill this questionnaire or let that nickel forever remind you of the poor animal you could have helped”. Of course they didn’t word it this way, but it wasn’t far from this.

I’ve got news for you people. I haven’t wantedly caused harm or death to an animal ever. Your stupid mail just aggravates and doesn’t serve it’s purpose. I am not going to feel guilty about taking the nickel and not answering the damn questions.

Nickels, bah. What is it with coins WITHOUT numbers in this country? I have no idea how much a nickel is. And yes, I should care but I don’t. I am too tired to scream about this now. I will, in good time.

On to more random happenings. How often is it that you get invited to a movie by random people? The first time you meet? On IRC? On #gimp at irc.gimp.org?

Not normal isn’t it. But weird things do happen all the time.

More importantly, looking at ip of this yosh person, he doesn’t seem to be like some ordinary soul. It leads to xcf.berkeley.edu. THE eXperimental Computing Facility at Berkeley. This is where the GIMP started people. Where gtk+ was born, and the reason why GNOME exists today, among other things.

This was, in my head, like the AI lab at M.I.T, in the sense of contribution to the world of extremely cool free software. These are some of the, “I have to see before I die” places. I toured around the A.I lab. I met people, spoke to and worshipped them and all that.

But not go out, in the sense of have fun. No, do you “hang out” with people you ‘revere’?

It just felt, I just feel.. unworthy?

This reminded me of a conversation about ‘intellectual elitism’ which I felt was, sadly, ingrained in me, in a major way. I just realized now it works both ways, I feel, I somehow almost feel it’s not my place to be amongst the giants.

There was a lot more I wanted to say. Just feeling too weak to go on.